• @BigMacHole@lemm.ee
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    2107 months ago

    TRANS PEOPLE and DRAG QUEENS are BAD for KIDS but ALSO we should be able to MARRY CHILDREN!

    -Republicans. All of them!

    • @Worx@lemmynsfw.com
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      417 months ago

      All school-girls are attracted to gross old men, therefore it’s consensual and perfectly ok. And even if it isn’t, they’re only kids; what do they know? They’ll learn to love their husbands in time. And if they don’t, who cares? They’re only women

  • @LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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    1557 months ago

    I’m at a loss for words. How did this man not get shouted down for saying that out loud and in public?! Those are the thoughts of a predator, which is a position of power.

    • IWantToFuckSpez
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      7 months ago

      When they screamed about the degeneration of Western society it wasn’t a warning it was an announcement. Everything is just projection with these evil cunts

    • @FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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      7 months ago

      Full context:

      If we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, when we do this to people who are a ripe, fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not, in fact, making abortion a much more desirable alternative

      I think this can be interpreted as “young people will inevitably get pregnant”, not “young people should get pregnant”.

      Still wrongheaded and cringeworthy, but maybe not as monstrous as it initially looked.

      • FuglyDuck
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        437 months ago

        No. That’s even worse.

        They’re arguing that children should get married to provide for kids.

        Reality: the only people that can afford to support not one but two children…. Are creepy old men.

        The argument is that because kids might get preggo, they should be allowed to marry them and make them preggo

        That’s fucked up.

        • @FlowVoid@lemmy.world
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          177 months ago

          I’m not sure he cares if anyone provides for them. Like many in the GOP, he seems to only care about preventing abortions without any thought to what happens next.

          • FuglyDuck
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            147 months ago

            He doesn’t.

            But he’s not just about preventing abortions.

            They’re pedos.

      • Billiam
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        307 months ago

        If we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, when we do this to people who are a ripe, fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not, in fact, making abortion a much more desirable alternative

        Read as:

        If we ban child marriage, then desperate single mothers will want to have abortions instead of getting married like God intended.

        Dude’s literally complaining that children getting abortions is easier than getting children married. No, that sounds exactly as ghoulish and monstrous as it appeared.

      • @LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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        107 months ago

        In my mind there is no generous interpretation of his words as there is a paragraph which makes his statement worse in my opinion.

        In a state where 18 is not old enough to drink, Edwards believes girls at 16 are old enough to get married.

        He wants marriage to 16 year olds to be legal; I don’t believe this is a good thing, especially if he also then argued for parental consent for marriages to adult men. It’s a huge red flag to me, personally.

      • Yeah but he skipped adoption and the idea that parents can continue to support their daughter even if she’s not a virgin. Teens getting married because one of them got pregnant is not the first thing I want people to think of. A teen marrying her statutory rapist should be even farther down the list.

      • @LostWanderer@lemmynsfw.com
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        67 months ago

        I’m deeply familiar with them it’s never been in their nature to say the quiet part out loud in front of everyone! Rather it’s projecting their desires on others to vilify them, hopefully their looser tongues sink their ship. 🤢

      • @Son_of_dad@lemmy.world
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        727 months ago

        Any conservative board or sub, will immediately be overtaken by fascist snowflakes. I mean who the hell would want to freely mod a conservative sub in their free time? The job description alone requires someone deeply disturbed

        • liv
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          367 months ago

          I have to disagree! I freely mod a conservative sub in my spare time.

          It has definitely not been taken over by fascist snowflakes.

          As proof, you are welcome to come and see for yourself: ☆ kbin conservative community

        • @barsquid@lemmy.world
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          297 months ago

          I was just thinking it would be fun to mod a conservative sub but take a conservative instead of a regressive viewpoint. Like: “people who do crimes should be held accountable regardless of their cult size,” “investing in infrastructure or climate mitigation is huge ROI so we should do a lot of both,” “we need regulations to manifest the invisible hand so the market can price things efficiently.”

          • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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            277 months ago

            “Any investment by the government in a private company should be done through the purchase of newly issued shares so that the government has voting rights and can push them to take decisions in favour of the long term interests of the country first and foremost.”

            • @barsquid@lemmy.world
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              147 months ago

              Right? It’s fun as hell. And if they’re insolvent that’s just a fire sale on the stock. Why are we harming the free market’s ability to price things by handing out money?

            • @Omgpwnies@lemmy.world
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              17 months ago

              That would be an interesting idea… IPO and issuing new shares incurs a ‘tax’ where say 10% of those shares belong to the government, with the end result that all publicly traded companies are 10% government owned

  • @kylie_kraft@lemmy.world
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    947 months ago

    It’s worth the remembering that these are the “LGBT = groomers” people. However, I posit that this horrid statement belies the truth, which is that they’re not trying to protect children, at least not individual children from specific ills. The anti-queer vitriol is, and has always been, grounded in eugenics. this is also why conservatives’ eyes glaze over whenever the topic of queer youth suicide rates in restrictive states is broached. Taken with the ever-present conservative fixation on ‘ripe’ and ‘fertile’ underage girls, alongside the Great Replacement conspiracy that has become central to their rhetoric, I feel justified in saying OH MY GOD THIS IS FASCISM WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK HOW IS THIS ALLOWED TO CONTINUE.

    • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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      217 months ago

      It’s grounded in disgust over violations of what they perceive to be natural. They see a 16 year old girl having a husband to be natural, they see a 16 year old AFAB boy as being a violation of the natural order. And since they see queerness as a sexual perversion and marriage as the sacred outlet of sexuality they see queer people as pushing sex on teenagers when they’re just encouraging them to settle down and have a family

    • GladiusB
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      447 months ago

      “Biden has said worse”

      “They didn’t mean it like that”

      “Your source is corrupt”

      “They are lying about their age because they are immigrants”

      Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

      The more you get angry, the more they can play victim.

    • @Nightwingdragon@lemmy.world
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      337 months ago

      Because the GOP have taken Mitch McConnell’s mantra of “if the Democrats are for it, we must speak out against it, no matter what” to ridiculous extremes.

      I would make a hyperbolic example about the GOP arguing in favor of murdering puppies and kittens if the Democrats wanted to save them, but they’ve already argued in favor of forcing 10 year old rape victims to give birth, telling those children they should be happy for the “blessing” they received, murdered schoolchildren being nothing more than the price we pay for a ‘free society’, and guns being necessary and more important than the safety of our children because they need to shoot prairie dogs. I don’t think any hyperbole is necessary.

      But this is how we get here. When the default is to be against literally anything the Democrats support, and the answer to the “what if…” questions that follow are to either double down on the extremism and/or just say “ban that too!”, this is the only logical outcome.

      • Doc Avid Mornington
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        97 months ago

        I think you’re underestimating the extent to which they really want these things, or their donors do. These issues aren’t new, and many of them either trace back to before the founding of the country, or are proxies for other issues which do. They’re just feeling bold these days.

    • @shalafi@lemmy.world
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      17 months ago

      There is a defense for these laws! Which makes it doubly fucked up that I’ve never once heard a Republican utter it.

      (Among other issues, marriage wipes out many legal complications of inheritance.)

  • HuddaBudda
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    797 months ago

    … If we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, when we do this to people who are a ripe, fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not, in fact, making abortion a much more desirable alternative, when marriage might be the right solution for some freedom-loving couples?” he said.

    Gross.

    He believes child marriage should be an option, so abortion isn’t an option. I would expect this from 4chan, not a government official.

    • @Zink@programming.dev
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      147 months ago

      Well that’s a gross new dog whistle to listen for.

      “Freedom-loving couples” is shorthand for “oh shit I knocked up this ripe fertile child I was fucking, and I love freedom, so now I need to marty/own her instead of going to jail.”

    • @Seleni@lemmy.world
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      67 months ago

      I mean, I don’t know what he’s whining about. In most states all he has to do is get the parents’ permission, and he can marry her even if she’s underage. Maybe he’s mad that 12 states ban it completely?

      On a side note, why is that a fucking exception in the law!?

  • @acockworkorange@mander.xyz
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    537 months ago

    “… If we continually restrict the freedom of marriage as a legitimate social option, when we do this to people who are a ripe, fertile age and may have a pregnancy and a baby involved, are we not, in fact, making abortion a much more desirable alternative, when marriage might be the right solution for some freedom-loving couples?”

    It’s either abortion or marriage, it seems. No other alternative. Also, Freedom loving couples? Never knew hippies to be into traditional marriage. Someone please shut this degenerate up for good.

  • @DickFiasco@lemm.ee
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    527 months ago

    I think the GOP intentionally spews some ridiculous shit like this every so often to make their regular shit look less crazy.

    • That’s not even a conspiracy theory; It’s literally why reps like MTG, Boeburt, and Ted Cruz exist. Their entire goal is to drag the Overton window farther to the right. They’re in safe seats where they don’t need to worry about reelection. So they’re able to spew batshit crazy far-right propaganda, and it makes the republicans in threatened seats look less crazy. Because if you’re in a threatened seat, you need to appear moderate to catch the swing votes. It allows those threatened republicans to continue to quietly vote along party lines without looking like a hardline republican.

      • 4grams
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        87 months ago

        just look at the abortion debate, folks are celebrating that AZ now has a 15 week ban instead of a full ban.

    • @mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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      277 months ago

      Yep, to move the Overton Window to the right. The left should do this as well. If a group of real leftist put out a political platform it would make Biden look like a Republican.

      • Completly ban lobbying
      • Free healthcare for all
      • Free college for all
      • Housing guarantee - homelessness not acceptable
      • Billionaires fortunes taken and redistributed
      • Ban fossil fuel subsidies
      • Military exit from all countries except as part of multi-lateral peace keeping forces

      Stuff like that

        • @Cryophilia@lemmy.world
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          37 months ago

          Billionaires fortunes taken and redistributed

          That’s the only extreme one to me. Higher taxes on billionaires is a reasonable take. Government forcibly seizing private property is not.

          Honorable mention:

          Military exit from all countries except as part of multi-lateral peace keeping forces

          This would be extreme except it’s not even possible, other countries are not interested in paying for their own defense.

          • That’s the only extreme one to me. Higher taxes on billionaires is a reasonable take. Government forcibly seizing private property is not.

            Except that billions are never private property - you have to steal from people to accumulate that much wealth. Or inherit stolen wealth. Exception: stars, where people voluntarily spend that much money to listen to them / see them. Not an exception: sports stars who get paid from sponsoring / advertisement revenues which in turn are stolen by slave labour / low wages.

            Nevertheless, no one needs billions, so taking all private properties above 1 billion still leaves those people with an obscene amount of money that honest work can not save up in a hundred(!) lifetimes.

            As for the military exit: While I agree that it’s not possible, I disagree on the reason - a sudden shift of military concentrations (e.g. weakening presence in some area) is unfortunately pretty much guaranteed to encourage someone to start an armed conflict somewhere. But that could be addressed in the form of the multi-lateral peace keeping forces mentioned.

      • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        107 months ago

        Just one thing. You can’t ban lobbying. You can and should highly regulate it. But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber if lobbying was banned. What we need to do is define anything more than a handshake passing between lobbyist and politician as a bribe. But Congress pulled the FBIs fangs decades ago now.

        • @SwingingTheLamp@midwest.social
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          57 months ago

          We could ban lobbying for consideration. (We already have a well-developed body of contract law which spells out the scope of consideration.) A lot of the effectiveness of lobbying comes not from donations, gifts, or other bribe-like transactions, but rather from the scope of their presence. For example, petrochemical lobbyists can show up in person every day of the week, exert direct pressure, and even soft influence like providing consultations or “expert opinion” about bills that come before Congress. The people affected by fracking, on the other hand, have lives to live, and the best that they’re capable of is calling and writing letters occasionally.

          Ban consideration in exchange for lobbying, instead. If an individual wants to go to D.C. and lobby on behalf of the petrochemical industry for no personal benefit whatsoever (not even covertly), great, that’s democracy in action. They’d be on a level playing field with the rest of us.

        • @mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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          47 months ago

          But you’d have to put your representatives in an isolation chamber

          Interesting… lol

          But in all seriousness, I’d say the number of reps we have it wouldn’t be impractical for a yearly complete IRS audit for each of them that has real consequences like losing your position, repaying victims fully, and/or going to prison.

        • @mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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          37 months ago

          Ya, I wish they were more effective. I’d also like to see more from the less authoritarian side of the left.

          • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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            27 months ago

            the less authoritarian side of the left

            Very hard to be authoritarian when you’re at the bottom of the economic totem pole. Are you sure you’re not just talking about the police, writ large?

            • @mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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              17 months ago

              I was speaking of the general authoritarian vs libertarian divide in the left. It’s not about power excercised, it’s about the power some on the left feel entitled to exercise to achieve their goals.

              Everyone on the left wants to make the world a better place, eliminate hunger and homelessness, all that good stuff.

              –> The terminology is confusing though as different groups use different words or definitions.

              On the one side you have your (authoritarian) “socialists”, and “communists” those who believe that order must be imposed from above by a powerful government and this government. Good social behavior is coerced by implied threat of force. This government of course is supposed to be and remain benevolent and always controlled by well-meaning socialists to ensure a functional socialist system. The DSA fits in here on the lighter side, “tankies” fit here on the extreme authoritarian end.

              On the other side you have your anarchist types (who are also typically non-authoritarian communists), those who feel that any entity powerful enough to control society will inevitably end up controlled by the worst type of people (because this is what’s happened in every state/government that has ever existed) and the we should look to non-state and non-coercive solutions.

              • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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                17 months ago

                the power some on the left feel entitled to exercise to achieve their goals

                This reads more like a right-wing interpretation of leftism than any kind of leftist internal critique.

                On the other side you have your anarchist types (who are also typically non-authoritarian communists), those who feel that any entity powerful enough to control society will inevitably end up controlled by the worst type of people

                That’s an Orwellian critique. But Orwell was a Burmese cop turned UK intelligence official under Churchill. The Animal Farm / 1984 view of left-libertarianism is far more a right-wing propaganda critique intended to discourage any form of organizing or collective action. Hell it might as well be lifted directly from the CIA Guidebook on how to disrupt a meeting rules 1, 7, and 8.

                And, in the end, the reflexive flight from any kind of organizational structure demonstrably doesn’t work. You can have fully decentralized entirely non-violent organically assembled student protests on college campuses, and you’ll still be accused of operating as violent, bigoted, fifth columnist dupes of wicked foreign governments. Meanwhile, you’re squaring off against a heavily financed, tightly managed, rigid state hierarchy that can act with impunity in the face of a fractured and easily infiltrated opposition.

                The foundation of left-anarchism is the cultivation of networks of trust. Not a reactionary fear of authority. When anarchists trust one another, they can and do form hierarchies and develop party discipline and even form state structures once they’ve achieved sufficient degrees of success. And its these trust networks that allow a community of anarchists to preserver after decades under siege by militant capitalists.

        • @mojo_raisin@lemmy.world
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          27 months ago

          I don’t think it makes sense to completely abolish cars. There will always be transport needs where public transport, trains, or bicycles just don’t fit the bill. There will be car and racing enthusiasts for the next century (assume we don’t collapse). The car industry needs to be reduced by 99% though, mostly transforming into maintaining existing cars rather than producing new ones.

          Some people will want to or need to live or work where public transit systems would be impractical to build. You can’t spend 80 million dollars on a transit system out in the sticks and you can’t force everyone to live like sardines next to a bus stop.

    • @UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      147 months ago

      I wish it was some strategic play to manipulate public opinion. But this is sincerely what white nationalists who have ingested too much Great Replacement Theory honestly think.

      Teenage girls are just baby-making factors for the “correct” ethnicity. Everything about our civilization hinges on the level of pigmentation in our skin and the shape of our foreheads/lips. We need to be prepared for a War To End All Wars, and that means churning out an army of Ubermensch to combat the savage hordes.

      It isn’t an act. This is what they sincerely believe. 20 years of post-9/11 hysteria and migrant-bashing has produced a party dead set on doing Nazi shit all over again, but from the inside of the country that won the last big war.

    • @Xtallll@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      57 months ago

      20 years ago that was their plan, but now they used the BS to control the masses so long, and so thoroughly, that the rubes that the were playing have taken control of the party.

      • AutistoMephisto
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        27 months ago

        See: Tea Party Republicans.

        They absolutely are what happened when the rubes got tired of the lip service and demanded action.

        Now, if only the radicals of the left could do the same, grow tired of the lip service, and hijack the Democratic Party.

  • @captainlezbian@lemmy.world
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    497 months ago

    Let’s set aside morality, because that’s also wrong. It’s factually incorrect. You want someone to die in childbirth? Knock them up at 16. Early 20s are the actual reproductive prime.

    • @darctiger88@lemmy.world
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      227 months ago

      Yup. Whenever someone tries to justify underage marriage with “most fertile period” or “it’s always been the norm”, you know they’re a pedo. Teenage pregnancies are risky because the pelvis hasn’t fully developed, and the girl is more likely to suffer severe depression as well. Most fertile age is more like 19-32 not 12-18. Also, I live in the UK and marriage records kept by the church from the 1400s show the vast majority of girls married for the first time in their early twenties, not teen years :)

      • @RBWells@lemmy.world
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        77 months ago

        Yeah I looked up my family on the Mormon genealogy site and was surprised how many of the women married around 28-30 years old. Certainly not as teens and I really was surprised. Like, I as a modern woman had kids younger than a good chunk of my ancestresses.

      • @Drivebyhaiku@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        Truth. Marriages at a super young age were not normal outside of nobility doing it for political alliance reasons and even then the general advice were not to try for a pregnancy because your risks of killing a young spouse were astronomically high. However the concept was popularized by fiction that basically wanted to trade on the idea of a gritty nasty medieval age where the darkness of the human soul cam be laid bare and how mankind has evolved into a kinder more civilized place… basically the same thematic itch as Warhammer grimdark logic.

        In regards to the whole “darkness of the human soul” thing it really doesn’t stack. People just want to believe their personal id (as in the Freudian concept, not “identity” ) is more universal than it is.

    • @henfredemars@infosec.pub
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      257 months ago

      I’m voting as hard as I can, but they’re making it as difficult as possible and even some of our leaders advocate for ignoring the votes.

      • @disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world
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        97 months ago

        If you’re voting, you’re not the problem. We’re failing at the polls and then complaining of the repercussions for their entire term.

    • Veraxus
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      157 months ago

      Because whatever disgusting, vile thoughts run through their heads is what they assume others must be doing.

      Some call it projection… but it’s projection because these are things they are OBSESSED with. They are so sick and lacking empathy and experience that can’t imagine that others genuinely think differently than they do. Every accusation is an admission.

  • @Mastengwe@lemm.ee
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    7 months ago

    Remember though, there are bad actors and propagandists here that will try to convince you that both sides are the same.

    They’re provably not.

    VOTE LIKE LIVES DEPEND ON IT. Because they do.

    • The Snark Urge
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      7 months ago

      Someone’s certainly does, and you won’t be the one picking whom.

      Edit: I’m not sure what I meant by this. Needed a nap.

  • @kescusay@lemmy.world
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    357 months ago

    Ew. Ew, ew, ew. Gross in ways I didn’t think an elected official could get away with in public.

    Someone needs to do a wellness check on his kids, if he has any. Again… Ew.

    • @Seleni@lemmy.world
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      157 months ago

      The exceptions in the law:

      If the child is pregnant

      If a judge okays it

      If the parents okay it

      Nothing wrong with this picture, nope, nope, nope. No abuse could possibly happen with this setup.

      • @Maggoty@lemmy.world
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        87 months ago

        Oh most of those states don’t even require a pregnancy. Just for the adults in the situation to approve of it. Technically the kid too but that’s probably the easiest part.

        What’s amazing to me is the absolute caterwauling from grown men in the Republican party when you suggest you should have to be 18 to get married. Like that 75 year old guy is worried he won’t be able to marry a high school girl.